WHAT’S BEEF?: R&B Singers Who Were Ready For War!

You know what’s cornier than hip-hop beef? R&B beef. I don’t think there’s anything cornier than when singers are beefing about something dumb like who has the better love song or who has the better falsetto. Some say women are catty but I’ll have you know that almost every case of R&B “beef” over the last few years have been between men. Take a look…

Lyfe Jennings & Raheem DeVaughn

As the story goes, Lyfe was doing an interview in Virginia about two and a half years ago and said he’d heard that Raheem DeVaughn called him out an issued some kind of “challenge” to him. Lyfe said if he Rah wanted a challenge, he (Lyfe) would remix one of Raheem’s entire albums. Well as luck would have it, Raheem was also in town for a show and showed up to the station with his entourage soon after Lyfe had left the building. For his part, Raheem said he would “talk to that black man face to face to get it squared away.” What ended the beef? I believe Lyfe went to prison for some other foolishness. I can’t make this stuff up, folks.

The Dream & The Weeknd

A few months ago, The Dream did a concert in NYC to support his new music and called out The Weeknd for jacking his style, primarily his voice (that falsetto thing he does) and his hip-hop/r&b type of music. Wait. Do you all know who The Weeknd is? He’s the guy who sings the chorus on Drake’s single, “Crew Love.” Got it? Cool. Anyway, after The Weeknd got wind of what The Dream said, he took to Twitter and said The Dream looked like the hamburglar. I would have gone with Teddy Ruxpin myself but Hamburglar is accurate too. Anyway, The Dream responded and told him he wasn’t hating or being petty, instead he was just telling the truth. He continued to go on a long tirade about spreading love not hate but that “youngin” shouldn’t take his “sweetness for weakness.” Yeah, I don’t know either.

Chris Brown & Brian McKnight

Quite frankly, this was all Brian’s fault. Remember when he put out that “song” about showing a woman how her p**** works?” He was receiving all kinds of backlash via Twitter so he replied, “Since everyone’s so opinionated I’m taking suggestions on what I should do next I’m thinking rent a lambo and beat the s**t outta my girl…that’s acceptable these days.” You all know that you can’t even mouth Chris’ name without him responded and yes, he went in. He proceeded to call Brian “old” and “irrelevant” and went on to say that his new song was trash and if he needed help, he should just ask. I must say, Chris won that “fight” because Brian quickly cut that convo short.

R. Kelly & Trey Songz

After the Kellz did his “Trapped in the Closet” series, he found himself in a bit of a rough patch musically. Young buck Trey Songz decided that he wanted to put Kellz (see how I’m going in and out of nicknames here) on some kind of notice and released a track called “DOK (Death Of Kellz). Silly little Tremaine playing his childish games. Kellz didn’t even respond directly to that but did say in an interview that he wanted to see the r&b guys coming up succeed and that they should stay away from beef. Guess what? Trey did an interview soon after expressing how much he loved R. Kelly. I bet he did.

Miguel &…Whoever He Was Talking To

Give a man a hit single and he thinks he’s savior of music. In June, Miguel did an interview on Power 99 in Philly where he held back nothing and said, “I’m just gonna say, Don’t nobody out there step into my f****n’ lane. Stay where you’re at. I’m a competitive person and what I’m saying is I’m solidifying my lane and don’t f*****g come over here ’cause I will f*** you up.” Now, who knows who he’s talking about because he doesn’t have a lane. Miguel tries to sound like The Dream (admittedly, he has a better voice) who tries to sound like Prince soooo..what was that again, Sir? I don’t think any r&b singer actually paid him any attention with that statement.

Jaheim & Syleena Johnson

Well, at least this one was just about the music. For a few months this year, Jaheim was really up in his feelings about everything. Someone tweeted to him that he and Syleena Johnson would work together. He tweeted that they had but no one would ever hear about it due to politics on Syleena’s end. When she saw his tweets, she pointed out that the politics weren’t necessarily from her side and that alluded to the fact that there were some other issues that resulted in Jaheim being taken off the song and Anthony Hamilton being put on it. Well, Jaheim didn’t like it and began throwing a few insults Syleena’s way (the tweets always ended with something like “keep it fabulous”) and since she’s never one to back down, she threw some back. Ultimately, they both decided to keep it off but I don’t think they’re “cool” with each other at all.

Trey Songz & Ne-yo

This little beef had just started cooking but it looks like we might be at a neutral place. Neyo gave out some free advice to Trey saying that he hasn’t reached his musical peak yet and that he should show more emotion in his songs. While doing his own interview in California, Trey responded that he would want to talk to Neyo about it because he sees it as some “sucker s***” to say something like that publicly when they know each other personally. Well just earlier this week, Neyo took to Twitter to say that he can admit when he’s wrong and apologized to Trey for saying that. Awwww. With that said, this “beef” has been taken off the grill. For now.